Caroline is SEND Advisor to the Special Partnership Trust, having worked previously as a Headteacher. Based in the South West of England, the trust is made up of ten SEN schools and Area Resource Bases (ARBs). Since it was founded in 2016, the trust has championed a collaborative and innovative approach to education, and this extends to their PSHE education programme.
Jenny is one of the Senior Subject Specialists at the PSHE Association. She has a Masters in Teaching and Learning, and led PSHE education and Citizenship in two London schools, including a school with Specialist Resourced Provision for Autism.
Note: This interview transcript has been edited for readability with permission from both speakers.
This interview explores a range of approaches to using and adapting our PSHE Planning Framework for Pupils with SEND. As with our other interviews in this series, it is worth noting that the examples given may not be applicable to all settings. But they do provide a useful starting point for reflecting on how you could use the Planning Framework in your own setting, with your own pupils.
Jenny Fox (JF)
Hi, Caroline, it's so lovely to be talking to you today about how your schools have been using the SEND Planning Framework. So you're an ex Headteacher and now the SEND Advisor to the Special Partnership Trust.
Can you tell us a bit about the context of the schools in your trust and the students that you work with?
Caroline Jewell (CJ)
Yeah. Of course. Morning, Jenny. It's lovely to meet with you. We're a specialist educational trust. We were founded back in 2016, and we work throughout the South West. It's now made up of ten special schools settings within our trust.
We work with pupils of all ages, so we work from early years through to the end of post-16 across our schools with a whole range of SEN needs. So anything from SLD, we've got PMLD pupils, ASD, SEMH. So in terms of the SEND Framework, we have pupils that are working across all stages from that encountering through to enhancement and beyond.
JF
So you've got quite a real breadth then, of different needs across your your trust.
And so with that in mind, how did you approach planning the PSHE curriculum, either in individual schools or for the trust as a whole?
CJ
Yeah, so each of the schools come from their own start point. They're all on their own journey.
We really encourage autonomy within our schools, across the Trust. But what we've developed as a Trust over the years is what we call 'learning communities', and we've got several of these that work across the trust with all of the schools represented. And those can be [made up of] Leads from all sorts of subjects.
So we have got one [learning community] specifically for our PSHE leads, who meet up half-termly throughout the year to look at various things. And one of the things that obviously we wanted to look at was the curriculum and the offer across schools. So we spoke with leads about how confident they were, how effective they felt their offer was. And part of that conversation obviously went back to: What is the curriculum?; What does it look like for the pupils in your school?
JF
Interesting. And so through those kind of networks then, and bringing the PSHE leads together, did you identify any kind of common challenges that they were facing?
CJ
Yeah. So one thing we found was that all of the schools were using the PSHE Association Planning Framework for Pupils with SEND. So that was great. That was a common sort of starting point for all of us. And then when we asked them to survey the staff back in their schools to find out how, you know, how it was working, what was working well with the Framework and anything that they were finding that wasn't quite what they needed it to be. There were two key messages that came back.
So firstly was regarding the first stage in the Framework, the 'encountering' stage. So the feedback from the teachers was that they felt that the learning outcomes within that column needed to be adjusted for our pupils. So they were asking for some additional outcomes to be considered for that area.
And secondly, they reported that the jump between the first stage and the second, the 'encountering' and 'foundation', was too big for a lot of our learners. There seemed to be a bit of a stepping stone in between that was required. So that was the feedback we initially got to the learning community. Those were the challenges they picked out for us.
JF
It's so lovely to hear about schools using the Planning Framework, and that that's a really good starting point. But whenever we're designing a national resource, we recognise that it's still going to need loads of kind of tweaking and changing and tailoring for the different contexts that schools are using it in. So it's really interesting to hear that kind of feedback on the Planning Framework, and where you were needing to tailor it.
So what did you do as a team then to kind of tackle or overcome that challenge?
CJ
Yeah. So the Leads discussed it and felt really confident that they could add some additions to the Framework to cover those challenges, to make sure that it was what teachers needed it to be.
So we booked two full additional days for the team. And it was anything between 6 and 8 people working on this. And we decided that we'd look at two things. We'd look at the 'encountering' stage first and look at how we'd set some outcomes around the different areas, bearing in mind the difference between the key stage one and two and the three and four parts of the framework.
And then we wanted to add an additional column — to bridge that gap between 'encountering' and 'foundation'. So we came up with a name of 'exploring' and we set to putting that additional column in place with the outcomes for what we've now called the exploring stage of the Framework. So we enhanced the 'encountering' stage, we put together and developed the exploring stage, and then we updated some of the 'foundation stage', and even dipped into 'core' in a couple of places where we just thought some of the outcomes could have been written in a slightly different way for our pupils. So yeah, that's what we set out to do.
Original
Adapted [example]
Original
Adapted [Example]
JF
Wow. That's quite a big undertaking, and great that you gave your PSHE Leads the time and space that they needed to think about that. And really interesting to hear that your version of the framework now has seven stages to kind of bridge that gap.
So really interested to hear how that has been working in your school since then? And do you have any further adaptations that you might make in the future?
CJ
Yeah. So one thing that came out of doing that piece of work together — that we're really pleased with — is it really enhanced the CPD for the Leads. Because we had a variety of Leads, some of whom were working more towards the end of the stages, and others that were used to working with much more complex learners. So they complemented each other really well.
We deliberately paired people up with those different sort of experiences and knowledge. So actually from that point of view, it created a great opportunity to develop those people who hadn't necessarily taught people with the more complex end [of needs]. [They] got to work with a colleague and learn about that. So that filtered back into schools in terms of the CPD and their strength as a Lead and what they could offer.
But also the feedback we've had from all the staff who've now been using the updated Framework has been overwhelmingly positive. So teachers have reported that it's lessened their workload, which is always really good for us to hear. It's something we're obviously always working on. So they feel that they can pick up that Framework and really understand where their pupils sit and what they need to do in terms of learning, planning and everything else.
So they've been really happy with it. And also they've been really buoyed by the fact that they can now see clear progress across the stages. And that's really been great to celebrate with the learners.
JF
Oh that's brilliant. So positive to hear that firstly it's reducing workload. That's absolutely massive and really worth the kind of time and investment then.
You did mention that you might be adding further things to the Framework in the future. Is that right?
CJ
Yeah. So partly from seeing feedback around workload, and always being mindful of that, we want Frameworks to be as user-friendly as they can be and as helpful to the teachers as they can be, and create those shortcuts in the work that they do.
So we've talked about adding almost like a row underneath each each section, which then has — for under each stage — ideas for lesson activities, links to anything that's online, any online resources or particular book references.
So again, it just adds another layer in for teachers to not have to go and singularly research those things and put those things together as a bit of a time saver. We're looking at doing that as they teach those topics So we're asking the teachers to add that detail in for us, and then we can pull it all together and maybe add some more things that we might have as Leads... [Add] some more ideas into the Framework.
So that's our next piece of work, which will take a little bit of time. But in in the long run we think it will give us a really, really strong Framework to share with teachers.
JF
Yeah, and stop teachers feeling that they have to reinvent the wheel every time. If they can draw from what's been done in the previous term or the previous time that that topic was taught, for example. That's really nice.
CJ
We know that the biggest impact on pupil progress is high-quality teaching. It's really well evidenced and researched. So we want our teachers to feel as confident as they can in teaching PSHE. And so we want to give them the right tools to do that really.
There is some concern, particularly over certain subjects within PSHE, that teachers aren't as confident in teaching them. So we want to give them that really good toolbox of ideas so that they know where to get started.
JF
Great. This is maybe quite a challenging question to summarise, but do you have any kind of 'top tips' to give to other special schools who are reviewing or thinking about updating their PSHE curriculum?
CJ
Yeah, I mean, we would definitely recommend to use the PSHE Association SEND Planning Framework as a starting point.
And obviously we're very happy to share the adaptations that we've made as well. We feel really lucky that there is a SEND-specific Framework out there, because that's not often the case. You know, we're sort of left behind a little bit, and we're often having to adapt a mainstream model. So it's a really good start point. So I would recommend starting with that as we had as schools.
And then I'd really advocate for strength in numbers. So regardless of whether you're in a Trust or not, it's about finding that network of colleagues with the same expertise that you've got, and the same sort of drive and knowledge and passion for your subject.
In terms of a message to leaders, I would say it's giving the time and valuing the time — to have that time out of school. Because we know how challenging it is to teach full time and lead on a subject across a school. That's really hard. It's a big ask for people. But if you give people the time and the tools to do that, it can be a really exciting role.
So yeah, we definitely advocate for the time and the space away from school to get together with a network of like-minded people who are comfortable with that sort of positive challenge of what's happening and checking in. All of our learning communities always report back that the most valuable thing is the sharing of ideas and best practice, but also the time to go into each other's schools as well. Because nothing actually beats seeing it happening in schools, in classes, with the children and the young people themselves.
JF
Oh, you're absolutely right! I think being a PSHE Lead can sometimes feel like quite an isolated role anyway in school. But if you kind of add on top of that the complexities of working with children with Special Educational Needs, it can be really hard sometimes to find, like you say, like-minded colleagues. So it's it's really lovely that your PSHE Leads have had that opportunity to kind of come together and share expertise.
Thank you so much for talking to us today. We always love hearing about how different schools are using our Planning Framework. So it's been really interesting to hear the things that you've liked about it, but also the things that you've adapted to make it as relevant as possible to your learners. So thanks so much.
CJ
Yeah. You're welcome. It was lovely to meet up. Thank you.